Although her mission was cut short, she still treasures time in Peace Corps
Diana Doria found her purpose sharing a lifetime of experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Seven months into her two-year assignment in the Dominican Republic, Doria, 75, received a shocking email from her supervisor — she had to evacuate the country. All volunteers were to report to the capital, Santo Domingo, by 5 p.m. the next day.
Doria rushed to pack two bags and get transportation to the airport before the country closed its borders. Her flight left at 2 p.m. Wednesday — the airport closed at 6 a.m. the next day.
It was the first time in the history of the Peace Corps that all of its volunteers were recalled from around the world. Doria was among more than 7,000 volunteers evacuated from posts in 60 countries.
“It was a little disheartening,” she said in the living room of her North Side home. “People don’t understand that as a returning volunteer you’re going through a grieving process. You joined because you wanted to do a job and then — boom — you’re gone.”
After tearful goodbyes to her host family, the volunter who always wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, boarded a Guagua, (pronounced wawa) a minivan of sorts, her mode of transportation during her stay in the rural area. The white minivan rolled across roads as she took a last look at cacoa trees and sugar cane fields that stretched across the lush countryside.
Hours later, Doria’s plane landed at the Miami airport, packed with travelers from around the world, many without personal protection equipment. During her 3-hour stay in customs, her mask and gloves stayed on, a practice she started aboard her plane.
Doria learned about the service from a gray-bearded man while cashiering at a San Antonio International Airport gift shop.
He put a couple of magnets on the counter for his friends in the Ukraine where he was a Peace Corps volunteer. She told the 70-year-old retired computer science professor from St. Mary’s University that she was too old to join the organization.
He said that there wasn’t an age limit on Peace Corps volunteers.
“What can I do?” she said. “I don’t have a teaching certificate. I’m not a certified engineer.”
“No, but you have something others don’t,” he said, pointing his finger towards her, “you have life experiences.”
That encounter led to Doria researching the organization. Doria retired from IBM after 44 years, she said, often the only female in the boardrooms. Moving
wasn’t a problem; she’d lived all over the country with the company.
She decided the Peace Corps answered the ‘why’ in her life.
Her three children and family supported her decision. She filled out an application in January 2019 and after a background check, she received notification in August she had been accepted.
“You don’t have to be locked into retirement and you’re bored,” she said. “The good Lord has blessed me with good health. There are options out there.”
She arrived in the country Aug. 20, 2019. There were weeks of training in the capital and the town of Peralvillo, where she learned about living in a small pueblo.
She lived in Sabana al Medio or Sabana in the Middle, an area without the internet, transportation, clinic, supermarket, or mail service.
She learned to coexist with native creatures from the land, that included a tree frog on her bedroom wall, hand-sized tarantula on the front porch and a snake coiled in the bathroom one early morning.
“That’s part of the adventure,” she said.
Her hosts were the Brios family, which included mother Daisi; her son D’Omar, 17, and daughter Ambar, 12,
Doria recalled evenings sitting on the front galleria or porch of the green-painted home, waving to passersby and watching the world go by.
She was assigned to the pueblo’s school where she used her bilingual skills as a youth development coordinator in the community school.
The students treated her as if she was their grandmother.
Doria’s first project was to clean up trash littered across the town. Over the course of one afternoon, she joined 60 students to gather the rubbish strewn across the grass and beneath foliage. When they finished, 50 large bags of trash were piled beneath a sprawling mango tree for trash pickup.
A precursor of the perilous days ahead came with a presentation about the coronavirus. The teacher, with glitter on her hands, shook the kids’ hands as they entered the room. When she asked the class to raise their hands if they had glitter on themselves, a large number raised their hands.
“You now have the virus,” the teacher said, explaining that the glitter represented the disease. “That’s how easily it’s transmitted.”
Doria said the students shared the information with their parents and families about the importance of washing hands and social distancing.
Since her return, she’s only seen her family through social distancing. She still hasn’t hugged any of her sisters or children. She has also met with the group Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of San Antonio to talk about shared experiences. Some members had returned 50 years ago, some just a month ago.
There are quite a number of volunteers older than 50, said Joshua Castro, regional recruiter for South Texas.
Castro, 31, said there were more than 230 volunteers from Texas in the field before the evacuation. More than 8,700 Texans have served at posts since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961. When people ask him about volunteering, he said he answers, “why not?”
“A lot of people want to do something impactful on the grass roots level,” Castro said. “It’s not too late to follow new dreams.”
Castro said there are around 150 members on an email chain and 30 attendees at monthly meetings.
Doria still thinks fondly of her host family and her unfinished mission. She talks to her hosts on the phone about a day in the future when they visit her and learn about the country they only know about via television.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions about us,” Doria said. “That’s where the Peace Corps plays a vital role. It’s part of our mission to help them understand America.”